Beyond Prototypes and Frames: The Two-Tiered Concept Representation

By R. S. Michalski and Ryszard S Michalski

Abstract

Introduction Cognitive scientists have been, for years, searching for essential ingredients of intelligence. Although this issue may not be satisfactorily resolved for quite some time, two abilities are clearly central to intelligent behaviour. One is the ability to acquire knowledge or skill through experience; that is, the ability to learn. The second is the ability to apply the knowledge or skill possessed to solve new problems; that is, the ability to reason. The new problems may concern actual events in the real world: for example, when one has to react to a new external stimulus; or may be imaginary, for instance, when one creates them for planning purposes. A precondition for the above abilities is the capability to represent diverse forms of knowledge. As our knowledge is built of individual concepts, to represent knowledge one needs to represent concepts. Consequently, understanding how concepts are represented is a fundamental problem underlying all efforts in